Celtic podcaster Stuart Dougan believes that the club’s potential signing of Albian Ajeti will not have an impact on Odsonne Edouard’s future at Parkhead.
Dougan was recently a guest on the latest episode of The Cynic podcast and the panel talked about many things involving the Hoops. One topic of discussion was Ajeti and his potential transfer to Celtic. Dougan made his opinion clear, saying that the Swiss striker’s potential arrival will not impact Edouard’s future.
Will Ajeti's arrival impact Edouard's position?
Not at all
Yes, it will
It has been reported that Celtic are now ‘set’ to sign the striker on a season-long loan deal from West Ham United and the Hoops do have the option of signing him permanently for a fee of around £5m.
When talking about the deal and how it could affect Celtic’s striker situation, Dougan said: “I think the nature of the structuring of the deal doesn’t necessarily imply that it means Edouard’s off. If anything, it is worth similar to the deal that Edouard came to Celtic with, where you had a season-long loan or an 18-month loan before Celtic had to actually commit to anything.
“Having extra striking options is good, especially when – I joke about it a lot – but it doesn’t look like [Vakoun] Bayo is really going to work out and it maybe would work better for him to go out on loan. There are some corners of the internet writing off poor Patryk Klimala already, which I think is a bit harsh.
“If you want competition, if Neil Lennon wants to have the option of playing a 3-5-2, you want to have, realistically, four fit-and-firing strikers that can come on in any combination so that if you have injuries and suspensions etc, then you are not worrying about where the goals are going to come from in the team.”
Dougan clearly feels that the structuring the Ajeti deal means that it won’t really influence Edouard and his future at Parkhead. He also feels that Vakoun Bayo might need a loan spell away from Celtic.
TIF Thoughts…
Ajeti didn’t score a single goal for West Ham in the 2019/20 season, but he impressed for Basel during his time at the Swiss club. He made 96 appearances in all competitions for the club and scored 43 times and he even racked up a tally of 21 assists during his time at Basel.
Celtic did play a 3-5-2 shape a few times in the second half of the 2019/20 season. If they decide to keep playing that shape, they might need a total of four striker options -as Dougan says. They would need a couple of regular starters and two back-ups for both the positions. So, if Bayo does get loaned out like Dougan wants, Ajeti could act as a very good option in the system and add goals to the team.